Apiti Life - A History

From the Manawatu Standard:

Apiti is a Maori word meaning the narrows, or the gorges. At 457 metres above sea level, it's a high uplift of land between two river systems, the Oroua to the west, and the Pohangina to the east, 40 kilometres from Feilding.

Its isolation meant it was settled by Europeans relatively late in New Zealand history; the first settlers arrived in July 1886, having been balloted 100-acre sections by the Feilding Small Farm Association.

The men went in first. In July, mid-winter, with bush frosts on the heights. It wouldn't fully thaw until spring, and the altitude meant summer frosts weren't unusual. They bashed through heavy bush; no roads or bridges. Access was mud-mired tracks created by the surveyors, and up shingle creek beds; all supplies packed in by hard-working horses.

Home wasn't built yet. They lived in the mud, under canvas and sacking, with split ponga logs forming the tent walls. Bunks were made from fern trees and wineberry branches, heaped high with surprisingly comfortable springy dried ponga fronds.

The fire was the heart of the camp. A huge, backburner log – long-lasting hinau or rewarewa was best – kept the fire alive and slowly cooked the wood pigeon or kaka stew while the men chopped and burned bush, trying to clear enough land for a slab whare, a garden, a paddock, a few head of stock.

"The match cleared this land," said Apiti farmer and 125th jubilee organiser Hilton Digby. "The bushfires went from here to Beaconsfield, from the late 1880s for the next 20 or 30 years."

New Zealand Museum No Go For Pregnant Women

From the Telegraph:

The Wellington-based museum, known as Te Papa - a Maori name that translates as "Our Place" - said it was imposing the rule as a condition demanded by tribes that had provided some of the items.

The "stay away" warning went out to staff from regional museums who have been invited to a behind-the-scenes tour of items not usually on display to the public.

Jane Keig, a spokesman for Te Papa, defended the museum's stance, saying some of the taonga, or treasures, "have been used in battle and to kill people".

She said Maori believed that each taonga had its own wairua, or spirit, inside it.

Maori tradition dictates that a pregnant or menstruating woman is tapu, or taboo, and so are the artefacts, meaning that if the two come into contact a curse could be invoked.

"Pregnant women are sacred and the policy is in place to protect them from these objects," Ms Keig said.

Traditional Maori belief in curses, or makutu, is exceptionally strong, and in 2007 a woman drowned after relatives attempted an exorcism to rid her of an "evil spirit" they thought was possessing her.

New Zealand: Women Behind the Brands

From the New Zealand Herald:

The women behind two of New Zealand's entrepreneurial success stories will speak at a business forum next week about how to take homegrown brands to international markets.

Justine Troy, co-founder of vodka label 42 Below, and Erica Crawford, co-founder of wine label Kim Crawford, worked hard to create globally recognised labels with their husbands, who more often than not have received the credit.

Troy and Crawford will speak at the second annual New Zealand Global Women forum, which was established last year to encourage and support women in business and to promote entrepreneurs.

NZ: "Unfortunate Experiment" Memorial Missing

From the NZ Herald:

Women's health campaigners were horrified this week to discover that a plaque commemorating two of the whistle-blowers on the "unfortunate experiment" at National Women's Hospital has removed.

Thursday was the 22nd anniversary of the public release of the Cartwright Report on the inquiry into Dr Herbert Green's unethical study at the Auckland hospital into carcinoma of the cervix.

An Otago University study published in June found a 10-fold higher rate of cancer among women initially managed with small diagnostic biopsies during the study period, than among women given treatments intended to cure them.

To mark the anniversary, as they do every year, a small group of women gathered outside the former National Women's Hospital building in Epsom on Thursday to remember the women harmed by the study - and those harmed by the cervical screening failure in Gisborne in the 1990s.

They went to pay their respects at the plaque, at the other side of the building, which commemorates the work of two of the doctors who spoke out against the study, Jock McLean and Bill McIndoe.

The metal plaque, mounted on concrete, was placed by the Women's Health Action Trust in 1993.

Balibo: An Australian Tragedy

From BBC News:

Indonesia has banned the film Balibo, which depicts the deaths of six foreign journalists in East Timor, the head of the foreign correspondents club said.

The club cancelled a screening of the film on legal advice that they could face charges.

The journalists died as Indonesian troops invaded East Timor in 1975.

Jakarta maintains they were killed accidentally in cross-fire. But an Australian coroner found in 2007 that the journalists had been executed.

The journalists - two Australians, two Britons and a New Zealander - were killed in the border town of Balibo as Indonesian forces entered East Timor.

A sixth Australian journalist was killed in Dili shortly after when Indonesian troops entered the city.

Web Links:

• Balibo - Official Film Site
• Balibo Five - Wikipedia
• Shooting Balibo - Penguin Books
• Balibo - Review by Shirley Shackleton
• Balibo 5 - Liam Bartlett Sixty Minutes Blog
• Death in Balibo, Lies in Canberra - Review by Simon Philpott
• Justice Long Overdue - Article in Perth Now
• Balibo 5 Inquiry - IGIS
• We Killed Balibo Five - from news.com.au
  

NZ Women Recieve Awards

From John Gibb @ Otago Daily Times:

Four leading academics at the University of Otago have received Early Career Awards for Distinction in Research from the university.

The recipients, selected for "outstanding research achievement" are immunologist Dr Sarah Young, physiologist Dr Rebecca Campbell, and historian Dr Angela Wanhalla, all of Dunedin, as well as rheumatologist Dr Lisa Stamp, of Otago's Christchurch campus.

Prof Harlene Hayne, the university deputy vice-chancellor, research and enterprise, announced the awards on Wednesday.

Elizabeth Bang

From the New Zealand Herald:
"The National Council of Women has elected Elizabeth Bang as national president.

Mrs Bang, from Hamilton, was the senior vice-president of the council for four years and has been involved with the council since the 1980s.

She is also the chief executive of Hospice Waikato."

Female President - Golden Shears Society

From The New Zealand Herald:
"The Golden Shears Society has got its first woman president.

Dannevirke businesswoman Mavis Mullins has been named to lead the society towards its 50th birthday in 2010.

Mrs Mullins and her husband Koro jointly own a shearing company.

She is a past winner the Golden Shears open woolhandling championship in 1987 and 1992.

In 2005 she became the first woman to manage a New Zealand shearing and woolhandling team, bringing back two titles from the world championships in Australia ."

You Go Girl!

A little bit of humour to come out of New Zealand today:

"Woman strips after wolf whistle"
Thursday May 22, 09:56 AM

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - Road workers in a small New Zealand town got their wish granted when a woman stripped saying she was fed up with their wolf-whistles.

The Israeli tourist was about to use an ATM in the main street of Kerikeri, in the far north of the country, when the men whistled, the New Zealand Press Association reported. She calmly stripped off, used the cash machine, before getting dressed and walking away. The woman told police she didn't take too kindly to the whistling from the men repairing the road. "She said she had thought 'bugger them, I'll show them what I've got'," Police Sergeant Peter Masters told NZPA.

"She gave the explanation that she had been ... pestered by New Zealand men. She's not an unattractive looking lady," Masters said. "She was taken back to the police station and spoken to and told that was inappropriate in New Zealand."

Reporter: Adrian Bathgate. Editor: Sanjeev Miglani

Now, that's what I call affirmative action!